One Book 4 Colorado is a statewide effort to provide every 4-year-old in Colorado with the same book, helping to instill a love of reading in Colorado youngsters.

Books will be distributed to children across the state at local public library events and at Reach Out and Read clinics and local doctors' offices May 6-20. Books will be available in both English and Spanish, and will be accessible to children with special needs.

One Book 4 Colorado is the result of collaboration between Lt. Gov. Joe Garcia's office, Serve Colorado, Reach Out and Read Colorado, Colorado State Library, Denver Preschool Program, public libraries, the private sector, and the foundation community. It is modeled after the successful Preschool One Book, One Denver program originated by the Denver Preschool Program. Both programs are premised on the idea that providing young children with access to quality books promotes early literacy and helps families serve as their children's first and most important teachers.

To ensure school readiness, it is critical that 4-year-olds have frequent and routine access to books and that they be read to consistently. The vocabulary level of preschoolers is predictive of their third grade reading proficiency. For low-income families, access to quality books and early literacy efforts are doubly important as research shows that low-income children have few to no books in their homes and are exposed to 30 million fewer words before the age of 4 than their higher-income peers. As just one part of Colorado Reads — The Early Literacy Initiative — One Book 4 Colorado aims to close this vocabulary gap by getting a book into the home of every 4-year-old in Colorado and fostering a culture of reading.

Woodruff Memorial Library will distribute "Duck on a Bike" through their Programming & Outreach Coordinator, Kimberly Gallegos between May 6 and May 20. She will be visiting her regular outreach sites which are CDS, First Impressions, Robin's Daycare, and Alicia Haldeman's Daycare. If your 4-year-old child is not at one of these locations, you may bring your child to the library to pick up his/her book during regular business hours. For more information about the library visit http://lajunta.colibraries.org or call 384-4612.